Socialist Sushi

I turned 32 on Wednesday. The week before me, Amber, and the in-laws were in Hilton Head, both celebrating Amber’s graduation with her Masters and spending some time with Lyndsey before she left for the summer.

I’ve started running again. For whatever reason this time, I’m really enjoying it. I think part of it may be I’m working from home now, and it gets me out of the house for a while. Anyway, while in Hilton Head Lyndsey and I went running a couple of times together, and once our friend Robert went with us; that was fun.

One of the last evenings we were there Amber and I went to the beach and talked. I mentioned to her my desire to get into better shape. According to my body-mass index, I’m just over the line for overweight. Right now, I can still lose weight pretty easily if I try. Unfortunately, I can gain weight pretty easily, too. And that’s not going to get better with each passing birthday…

It’s funny how your views on such things change. It’s become a theological issue with me. I want to be useful to the church as long as I can. Amber and I have also discussed going to the mission field instead of retiring here (yes, John Piper has had a lot to do with that; see here and here for starters). But if I don’t take care of my health now, how useful will I be when I’m 65, 70?

I figure a good way to stay motivated is to post all this on my blog for my friends to see. So here ya go. We’ll track my progress here. I’m kinda easing back in, so I’m not running the whole time, instead going for 30 minutes, 3 minutes running, 3 walking. I’m changing that today to 3 minutes running, 2 walking, and following I’ll continue to adjust the recovery time til I can run the whole time with no trouble. Then I’ll start being concerned with milage.

For the record, though, I went 2 miles yesterday in about 30 minutes. When I weighed Thursday I was 174. I’m 5′8″ tall.

If I don’t improve this, I’m counting on all of you to make fun of me.

Finally, one big encouragement to me has been Joe Thorn. Funnily enough, he 1 year anniversary of running was May 29… 1 day after I turned 32. His post on that, especially the picture at the end, is helping me along.

So, I’m off now. Amber got me new running shoes for my birthday, plus a watch, so it’s time to break em in.

Can we doubt that presently our race will more than realize our boldest imaginations, that it will achieve unity and peace, and that our children will live in a world make more splendid and lovely than any palace or garden that we know, going on from strength to strength in an ever-widening circle of achievement? What man has done, the little triumphs of his present state … form but the prelude to the things that man has yet to do.

– H.G. Wells, A Short History of the World (1937)

The cold-blooded massacres of the defenseless, the return of deliberate and organized torture, mental torment, and fear to a world from which such things had seemed well nigh banished — has come near to breaking my spirit altogether … “Homo Sapiens,” as he has been pleased to call himself, is played out.

– H.G. Wells, A Mind at the End of Its Tether (1946)

Quoted in Tim Keller’s The Reason for God, page 159.